[geeks] Apple/Intel another (pre | per )ceptive article

Charles Shannon Hendrix shannon at widomaker.com
Tue Jun 21 23:51:58 CDT 2005


Tue, 21 Jun 2005 @ 21:44 -0500, Bill Bradford said:

> This means that they've modified the PCI-E slot on it so that you can't
> install a "regular" graphics card, and have to use the onboard video.  From
> all reports I've seen, you can use a Dremel carefully, file out the little
> piece of plastic that stops a normal PCI-E video card from going in, and
> bypass the onboard video.

Interesting.  

Seems like they would have modified the BIOS to simply not allow the
video to work.

It also seems like it would cost more to cripple a slot than to just
have the slot left off the board entirely.  Either way it is a custom
step in the fabrication process.

If it has PCI-E video which can be easily fixed, that's pretty cool.

> It's a desktop box, basically, with crippled graphics expandability
> unless you've got 5 minutes and a file/dremel.
>
> I just priced one out with 2x80G, 256M, and a 2.4 P4 - $336!

Yep, they are tossing in a free hard drive and CPU upgrade until
tomorrow.

> Even for low-end hardware, that's not a bad deal at all.

True, though I'd want to know the details about the motherboard before
buying one.  I can't see the link for that on the pages for that unit.

I thought there was a link on each page like that with low level
details, but I couldnt' find one.  I want to know what kind of
motherboard it has, and in detail.


-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["I want this Perl software checked for
viruses.  Use Norton Antivirus." -- Charlie Kirkpatrick]



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